


Elements - A Marauders' Fanfiction

by malfoyscrown



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Marauders, Marauders Friendship, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 02:07:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10548224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malfoyscrown/pseuds/malfoyscrown
Summary: The Marauders return for their fifth year at Hogwarts, each with their own ambitions and their own worries. This time there are darker elements at play and some of them are already struggling to cope.





	1. Blurred

Remus, James and Peter were stood on Platform 9 and 3/4, discussing their summers. Essentially, this was to say that James Potter was talking as much as he could about himself and his obsession with Lily Evans.

Remus Lupin found himself drifting out of the conversation, pushing James's words to the back of his mind as he scanned the platform. Sirius hadn't arrived yet. That wasn't a cause for concern, but Remus found himself more interested in Sirius, particularly in this moment of time, than he was interested in the adventures of James Potter and his quest to seduce Lily Evans. They'd all got a sense of the plot now. It was like watching a comedy show where every episode was a trial of a different method to 'get' the girl, and all inevitably failed, leaving the male lead in a compromising or embarrassing position at the end of it.

Remus couldn't help but be a little jealous of James; all he seemed to worry about was that girl. Remus wished he had so few worries that a crush could be the biggest of them. Though maybe James just worried about things differently. Perhaps he shielded everything else underneath and focused on her instead.

It seemed unlikely. What did James Potter need to worry about?

Remus would hate to say he had it harder than the others because that would seem like he wanted sympathy, which he definitely didn't. He also didn't believe that sadness or concern where something measurable, or something that should be measured. Still, he did wish that he didn't have to worry about turning into a wolf every month and that he had enough worries going spare to spend them on seducing a girl, or maybe a guy, instead.

Remus hadn't had the easiest summer but neither was it particularly difficult. Everyday was difficult now for Remus, who found that his 'hairy problem', as James had named it, was only getting worse. He was starting to scare himself more and more, though he'd never admit that to anyone because he wouldn't want to concern them.

"Oh shit," Remus's thoughts were interrupted by James. He looked up quickly in alarm and scanned the platform. Had something happened to Sirius?

No. Of course it was only Lily Evans that he saw approaching the group of them.

"Shit," James repeated, combing his already messy hair with his fingers and somehow making it messier than it was before. "What do I do?" James asked, trying not to look overly panicked at the thought of his first conversation of the year with Lily Evans.

Remus tried not to find the scene too amusing and he also tried not to find it a little amusing when he told James that Lily was here to speak to him, not James. James wouldn't have appreciated a smug smile at that point, so he did try very hard to keep his expression even.

"What? Moony, are you sure? Why?" He let James continue the stream of questions and he turned to face the approaching Lily.

"Hey," Remus greeted her politely and with a genuine smile that was reserved for those he liked talking to. Lily was someone he liked talking to. She was sweet and laid back and she was the most understanding person, in the sense that she could look at you and tell you what was wrong before you even knew it yourself.

"Hey Remus. Hey Peter." She smiled at the quiet boy stood behind James whom James was hiding in his shadow, as he always unintentionally seemed to do.

"Hey Evans," James greeted her almost stupidly, his voice leaking enthusiasm. She gave a curt nod in response, a cruel treatment that he probably deserved given the five years of stalking and pining she'd had to put up with.

"I just wanted to say that once you've finished catching up with everyone, I'll see you in the carriage with the other Prefects so we can go around and check the First Years are all okay." For a few moments Remus had forgotten about the Prefect situation. The Prefect situation was that someone (inevitably Professor McGonagall) had idiotically decided to appoint him a prefect, most likely with the hopes that he would manage to control his ridiculously mischievous friends, believing him the most sane of the lot. Unfortunately, it now meant someone expected him to behave maturely. He glanced down at the badge on his jumper, as if checking and then being disappointed to find that it was still there and the whole incredulous scenario was in fact true.

"Prefect? Lupin who decided to make you a Prefect?" James questioned in amused alarm.

"Someone who thought I'd be capable of babysitting you." He threw the comment over his shoulder in James's direction, then he turned back to Lily who was smiling in response. "Yeah, I'll see you there. We're just waiting for Sirius to arrive before we get on."

"Okay, see you." Lily turned and walked away and James stood watching her, eyes wide and mouth almost hanging open.

"Stop drooling." Remus snapped at James.

"Will you put in a good word for me?" James asked, his tone politer than normal as he turned and looked up at Remus.

"There aren't enough good words in the world to make Lily Evans stop thinking you're a prick." Peter chuckled and James rolled his eyes.

Remus turned around and searched the platform again. His eyes caught sight of the Blacks, stood at the other end of the platform. He looked at them, trying to identify Sirius within the group but his eyes only found the shorter Regulus (who, on first sight, looked a lot like his older brother) and both of his parents.

At once Remus's mind started panicking. What had happened over the summer? Had Sirius not come? There were infinite possibilities and each was more worrying than the last.

Remus's panic was interrupted as he felt a tap on his shoulder and he turned around quickly. He was filled at once with relief as his eyes met Sirius Black. The boy with the long, messy black hair that constantly had strands that were falling into his eyes. The boy with the harsh features that Remus had looked at so many times that he had memorised the shape of. The boy who wore leather jackets and ripped skinny jeans as he showed off his obsession with the rock music that Remus had introduced to him years ago. All of that was familiar to Remus, in fact he could've recited it from memory.

What was not familiar about this boy, was the giant, black bruise surrounding his eye.


	2. Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you made it through the first chapter and are reading this then let it be known that I think you are awesome and wonderful so thanks and hey.  
> (This chapter has a little bit of violence but I wouldn't call it particularly graphic. Be warned anyway)

Sirius Black had a shaky relationship with his family, to say the least of it.

Most of it began when he'd been sorted into Gryffindor. He'd been heartbroken. His parents were furious, utterly, utterly furious. He'd been ignored entirely at first, which at the time felt like the worst possible response because he was left permanently filled with uncertainty and fear. However, it turned out to be the best stage, because the next stage involved his father screaming until all the oxygen was out of his lungs, taking a deep breath, and then screaming again, which was combined with some physical violence and hexing, although that wasn't abnormal within the Black family. One had to keep everyone in order somehow and as his father would say, he had an image to maintain. His mother hadn't treated him much better, her insults were sharp and snide and they stung Sirius at first. Everything stung him at first. He hated himself for it all.

But over time, he began to realise that his parents' love wasn't something he desired. He knew that James Potter and his band of Gryffindor friends were everything that was good in the world, while the Blacks symbolised everything that wasn't and tried to fill the world with hate and pain through their extreme views. Of course he'd always wished that his life had been different, that he'd been born into a loving family like the Potters, but he didn't want to be the perfect Slytherin child that his parents had desperately wanted him to be. He realised now that he'd rather have died than grown to be the monster they'd mistaken him for.

So instead he made every effort he could to anger his parents, gaining satisfaction from their fury rather than the fear it had caused before. Those efforts meant refusing to cut his hair, letting it grow down to his shoulders as an act of rebellion against the family traditions. He'd also developed an obsession with muggle music and traditions and that was why his room was covered in posters of motorbikes or rock heroes and his Hogwarts trunk was covered in stickers.

Things like that made living with a family that hated him a lot more bearable.

However, this summer things had been a little different or perhaps they'd just been simmering for a long time but had now reached a point where they were boiling and unavoidably rising over the top.

Sirius began this particular argument with his music, as had happened many times before. He was playing a band that Remus had introduced him to, Queen, and being Sirius Black, he had developed the notion that music was not music unless it was played extremely loudly. This explained why, on this particular evening, the Black household was filled with a throbbing music that shook the floorboards.

Normally this situation would continue with Orion Black banging his fists on the door, screaming at Sirius to "turn off that fucking noise" and then retreating once the music was down to an inaudible volume. A quick resolve. But this time Sirius didn't get a warning or a stream of swearing. Instead, his father threw open the door to his room and stormed in.

It was the first time the two had looked at each other properly for a while, maybe since the Gryffindor 'incident' in Sirius's first year, five years ago, and the contact felt wrong in every sense.

Sirius felt a shiver run through him as he looked into his father's eyes and realised that any faint or strange, messed-up Black love that had once been present in them when he looked at his son, had faded entirely. He looked at his father and all he saw staring back was a man with the eyes of a monster, filled with a visibly uncontrollable, animal-like rage. For the first time in years, Sirius Black had felt scared of his father.

"I'm done with you. I am done with you entirely Sirius Orion Black. I have raised you. I spent years raising you and I brought you up to be everything. You were going to be brilliant but look at you!" His words came out in shouts, screaming the same way a lion roars. Sirius felt like his ten year old self, wanting to run far away from the beast he was being forced to fight and it was an unfamiliar feeling which he hated. "Now you're this, you're pathetic and you treat your own family like we are nothing. You made yourself our enemy."

Sirius took a deep breath. He was no longer ten years old and he would no longer be the lion's prey. He was Sirius fucking Black, as James would often call him, and he fought back, he fought back hard.

"You raised me?" He'd asked, mimicking his father's ferocious tone. "You raised me to be a soldier, not a son. I was a child and you never showed compassion or love. You tried to raise a monster, a copy of yourself and now you're disappointed that you failed."

"How dare you speak to me like that?" Orion stepped forward, approaching Sirius so that as he spoke, the spit jumped out of his mouth and landed on Sirius's face, but Sirius didn't step away. "How dare you?" The words were spoken so close that Sirius felt his father's warm breath in a rush against his cheek and before he saw it coming he felt the punch delivered hard to his stomach, causing him to lean forward, clutching below his ribs with one hand.

It took half a second for Sirius to react, his arms drawn back and his body a mess of anger and adrenaline. He swung his arm as hard as he could into his father's stomach, feeling his knuckles sink into his skin but his father was fast and a big, strong man and he hardly reacted to the attack.

His father threw another punch, this one was to the face, hitting Sirius's cheek and filling his mouth with the metallic taste of blood as the warm liquid brushed his gums. "How dare you walk around with your mudblood tastes, acting like you own me, like you own this family?" The sentence was followed by another blow that Sirius was unprepared for. It skimmed his forehead and caught his eye. "How dare you spit on the Black name?" He inserted a kick to Sirius's shin after he said the words and Sirius stumbled, landing on his knees as his head spun. There wasn't a part of him inside or outside that didn't ache but he wouldn't cry, he wouldn't cry, he wouldn't cry. He would not give his father that satisfaction. The room became a blur to him. He took another kick to his ribs and then his body gave in and he fell down on the floor.

Sirius watched the blurred figure of his father bend down next to him. He felt something hard jab into the side of his head and he saw his father holding out his wand. Sirius wanted to retaliate somehow but his body was too tired. Maybe he was done for, maybe his father was about to utter the killing curse and rid himself of the burden his son was, once and for all.

Orion moved his face down next to his son and despite the ringing sound in the background of everything, his father's words came out clear. "There are curses I'd delight to use on you, Sirius Black. Maybe one day I'll get the pleasure." With that his father stood up and left the room, slamming the door and leaving his son laying on his bedroom floor, alone, bruised and bleeding.


End file.
